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Edited on Sun Feb-07-10 10:53 AM by Skidmore
Now my husband is black and of Caribbean descent. His brother lives in Milwaukee, and things are hard there. He told us that daughter has moved between 3 jobs recently and her current one is at a hospital where the entire staff has been moved to 4 hour days. Houses are standing empty and unsold in his neighborhood. There is a lot of fear right now and despair is setting in. My brother-in-law says he fears that something bad is just around the corner for the nation as a whole. He said in all of his years here, he's never had this feeling about America.
My brother-in-law stayed up last night watching the Teabagger Convention and Palin. He was furious that this woman has been given a national platform and that her shallow ignorance has been accepted and conventional wisdom. He was furious that the media is appearing to sell her and there is not pushback. This man who became a citizen of this nation some 40+ years ago BECAUSE HE WANTED TO BE ONE says that he thinks this nation is going downhill fast and it is being driven in the ground. He was furious with the people of Massachusetts too for sending Brown to the Senate. His thinking, and I believe him to be spot on, is that the racists on the right are riding hellbent for leather and they are being aided by the left. He said that the President can do nothing when he's being kneecapped on the right and hamstrung on the left. AND guess who he holds more responsible? The left...Democrats. You got it.
People are not stupid. They see the duplicity and the stupidity of ideologues and demogogues on both sides. They see people in power and those with access or the ability to influence thos in power unwilling to take meaningful practical, common sense steps to solve the nation's problems, electing to clutch at the pearls of the current manufactured outrage and have the vapors while letting it all go. They see a lie, a great lie. And this is how someone like Palin is given a platform at all. Sometimes when you burn the barn down, you burn the house also.
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